Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-07-22
A BEAUTIFUL EAR.
SINGULAR CASE OF A PATHETIC
OUTGROWTH OF SeNSIBiLlTY.

Story Told to an Expert in Nervous
Affections A Particularly Hideous
Pair of Ears--A Sort of Holy Grail
Quest.
heard of pathetic outgrowth of nervous
sensibiity the other day. professional
man who lives at the West End, and who is
not only painfully self-conscious man. but
also one given TO observing things about him
with great minuteness, has become so acutely
susceptible to the essential ugliness of the
human ear that he scarcely sees anything else
in the people about him than their ears To
physician, an expert In nervous affections,
whom he was wise enough to consult, this
gentleman told his story somewhat after this
fashion: at was as many as five or six years
ago that the sight of a particularly hideous
pair of ears, one of which had been slit in a
CHASTITY manner in some accident or fight, set
me to rejecting on the extraordinary caprice
of Providence in setting, in the most consplc-
uous place upon the head of its curious
earthly achievement, such utterly absurd and
unsightly contrivances as human ears The
ear is useful, no doubt but might not an in
finite ingenuity and an omnipotent choice
have provided man with an auditory appli-
ance less hideous than this convoluted ex-
crescence?
STUDYING IT UP.
Il was led to ask myself, is there any such
thing as beautiful human earG | looked up
all the passages in polite literature in which
the human ear is referred to, and found not
only that such passages are extremely few,
but that the beauty referred to-all the COM
parsons, of delicate, pink edged feminine to
the translucent interiors of sea shells, and the
like, are simply comparative. No poet ever
thought, so far as | could find, of finding alb
solute beauty in the ear. 1t is only as a
pendent or an accompaniment, less hideous
than usual, to the beautiful head and face of
a lovely woman, that the actual ear itself, as
apart from the faculty of hearing, ever be-
comes tolerahe in poetry. In art the ear is
a thing to he disSembled; no realist was ever
so unblushing as faithfully to paint the ear as
it is Photography reveals it in all its ugli-
ness; but poetry bears the same relation to
art that the dissection of the body does to the
love of humanity.
"The running of these through my mind
led me to start a sort of Holy Grail quest for
same time | found myself searching out,
whenever got upon a street car or railway
train, and as walked down the crowded
streets, all the ugliest ears, with the in
stinctive eagerness of a connoiSseur. The ear
habit grew uron me. became sort of col
lector of ears When came into railway
train filled with people, my eye ran down the
long rows of ears next the aisle TO see whether
there was a vacancy in the devious lines
that | might fill with my own That row
of ears, to man who had fallen into the
habit of observing nothing else but the ears,
was horribly suggestive of q sea serpent!
NOTHING But EARS, EARS, EARS
a say that all this began five or six years
ago; but. of course, my mania-for such it
has become-did not all at once take this seri-
Gus form 1t has been a gradual growth.
Now find it threatening, perhaps not my
mental balance, for feel capable Of main
tanning that, but my peace of mind certainly,
and all my old senSibillty to the beauty of the
human form and the lovelineSs of lite about
me- NV old keen sense of the beautiful
lament, as fallen angel might lament the
Joys of paradise For me there is nothing in
the world hut ears, ears, ears. The pleasure
that | sometimes feel in meeting a specimen
less hideous than the rest does not repay me
for the oifense which the uniform dead level
of iIl-shapen growth inflicts upon me; and i
am resolved, if medical science can do any
thing for so strange a malady, to take the
| utmost possible advantage OF 1t. II it could
so Influence my organs Of sight as to make it
impossible for ME ever again TO see the hu-
man ear at all, it would be cousummation
devoutly to be wished
| understand that the eminent physician
consulted in this case was completely non-
plussed for a time, but has at last succeeded
in SO influencing the sufferers thoughts and
attention by divert,ng them to other chan
nels that he Is already somewhat hess poign-
| antly conscious of the ears be sees, that the
| doctor Is in fact, fighting the old mania with
| new one, and intends to check the new be
fore 1t, in its turn, shall take possession of the
| patient, as did the other The case have
| no doubt. will suggest to more than one
| reader something of a similar sort in hi>
| knowledge or experience. 1t is only one OF
| many morbid outgrowths of the keen con
| sciousness, the rawness of sensibilty that
| overwork aud intense mental strain have
| superinduced. Boston Post.